Carpet anchoring strip method

ABSTRACT

A METHOD FOR LAYING WALL-TO-WALL CARPET ON A CONCRETE FLOOR IN WHICH A PAD IS INCLUDED UNDER THE CARPET AND IN WHICH THE ANCHORING STRIP IS UTILIZED FOR SECURING THE EDGES OF SAID CARPET ADJACENT THE BOUNDARY OR WALL AND IN WHICH THE WALL IS ROUTED OUT AT FLOOR LEVEL AND THE ANCHORING STRIP IN INSERTED UNDER THE WALL AND SECURED TO THE CONCRETE TO PREVENT LIFTING OF THE EDGES OF THE SAID CARPET.

Feb'. 2, 1971 G. PoRzlo 3,559,273

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:Ns/mm. j asa/rse Pafi'zla United States Patent 3,559,273 CARPET ANCHORING STRIP METHOD George Porzio, Bricktown, NJ., assignor to George Samaris, Peter Samaris and Nick Samaris, doing business as Samaris Bros., Eatontown, NJ., fractional part interest to each Filed Jan. 2, 1969, Ser. No. 788,362 Int. Cl. B23p 11/02 U.S. Cl. 29-446 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A method for laying wall-to-wall carpet on a concrete licor in which a pad is included under the carpet and in which the anchoring strip is utilized for securing the edges of said carpet adjacent the boundary or wall and in which the wall is routed out at floor level and the anchoring strip is inserted under the Wall and secured to the concrete to prevent lifting of the edges of the said carpet.

`This invention relates to the laying of carpet and more particularly to the method of laying and securing the edges of wall-to-wall carpet.

Most of the carpet anchoring strips available and as shown in the prior art, are for wood oors, where the grip is attained as shown in Pat. Nos. 2,928,115 and 2,926,378 in which the strip is nailed to the floor. However, when wall-to-wall carpet is to be laid upon a concrete oor, the anchoring strips have been glued to the concrete and they do not provide a `good permanent anchor. Various attempts have been made to provide such an anchor, one such anchor being shown in Pat. No. 2,563,615 in which a special bracket is supplied to be attached by a nail or tack to the wood wall. The brackets in turn holding a wood strip with upstanding tack projections for gripping the carpet. Most of the carpet laid today by the trade is retained or anchored by a strip of plywood on which a block is aiiixed adjacent its edge and the tack carpet holding projections extend through said block, this is produced in great quantity and at a minimum price. This carpet anchoring strip is nailed to the iloor when it is wood, the padding overlays the plywood strip and abuts with the block and the carpet is stretched over the padding and over the block to be gripped by the holding projections, the edge of the carpet is then pushed into the marginal space between the block and the baseboard. This produces a fairly good anchor in good solid wood floors. When this carpet anchoring strip is used on a concrete floor, the nails used are special hardened nails, that is, they are p hardened to be pounded into the hard concrete and they must wedge into the voids of the concrete to hold. Unfortunately concrete structure tends to ake or crack especially at the sand granules and break loose under continued pounding. A fair grip may be obtained upon such a nail, that is, it may be driven and wedged into the concrete enough to resist a shear stress but a direct outward pull on such nails meets little resistance. Thus very few nails driven into concrete have enough grip to resist a pull along the axis of the nail, they are easily ripped out. Another difficulty found with nails in concrete is the tendency of pounding or vibration directly adjacent to a nail that has been wedged into the concrete, will often release the wedged nail. To overcome the difficulties in mounting a carpet anchoring strip on floors, it is an object of this invention to provide a method of fastening an anchoring strip to the floor to resist all direct pull or shearstress upon the fastening means and to provide a quick and permanent fastening of the anchoring strip to the area where the carpet edge must be tucked in and held.

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A further object of this invention is to provide a method of fastening an anchoring or holding means for the edges of wall-to-wall carpet by routing out a ledge under the baseboard so that the carpet holding means can be wedged under the baseboard and permanently fixed and the carpet edge tucked into the holding means.

A still further object of this invention is to provide a method of fastening an anchoring or holding means for the edges of wall-to-wall carpet by routing out a ledge in a concrete wall at the floor surface so that the carpet holding means can be wedged under the wall and permanently fixed and the carpet edge tucked into the holding means.

A still further object of this invention is to provide a method of fastening an anchoring or holding means for the edges of wall-to-wall carpet on stairs by aiiixing a lirst holding means to the tread adjacent the riser and a second holding means to the riser adjacent the tread and forming the adjacent edges of the holding means in an interlocking relationship so that all pulling stresses by the carpet are resolved into a shear stress against either holding means and the carpet edge tucked into the holding means.

A further object of this invention is to provide a method of fastening a strip for wall-to-wall carpet in which the strip is providedwith a slightly extended ilat portion along the front edge of the strip to permit wedging this portion between the floor and the adjacent wall and fastening the area of the strip adjacent the opposite edge with nails to prevent any movement of the strip away from its wedged relationship with the baseboard.

Other objects of this invention shall be apparent by reference to the accompanying detailed description and the drawings in which FIG. 1 is a plan view (slightly in perspective) of an anchoring strip for holding the edges of wall-to-wall carpet,

FIG. 2 is a cross sectional View of an anchoring strip mounted on a wood floor adjacent a wood partition or wall,

FIG. 3 is a cross sectional view of an anchoring strip mounted on a concrete 4floor adjacent a concrete partition or wall,

FIG. 4 is a cross sectional rView of a stairway with anchoring strips holding wall-to-wall carpet thereon,

IFIG. 5 is an enlarged detail in cross section of the mounting of the holding strips,

FIG. t6 is a plan view (in perspective) of the interlocking edges of the two abutting edges of the holding strips, and

FIG. 7 is a view of a further embodiment of FIG. 6 taken on line 7-7 of FIG. 4.

Referring to the drawings and particularly FIG. 1 there is illustrated an anchoring strip 10 used for wall-to-wall carpet and particularly designed according to this invention. The anchoring strip 10 is provided in long narrow pieces that may be cut to any desired length. The anchoring strip 10 is comprised of a plywood base 11 with a narrow block 12 rigidly secured to strip 11. The leading edge 14 of block 12 is set back from the edge 15 of strip 11. Block 12 is provided with a plurality of carpet hooking nails 16 with the pointed ends of the nails extending upward from the top surface of block 12 and slightly toward the leading edge 14. All of the pointed ends are oriented in the same direction so that when the anchoring strip is fixed to the floor, all of the hooking nails 16 will be pointed toward the wall 17 (FIG. 2) or the baseboard 18.

Referring to FIG. 2, with a lloor 23 upon which wallto-wall carpet 24 is to be installed, when installing carpet wall-to-wall, it is necessary to anchor the carpet at the wall. Therefore an anchoring strip 10 must be provided adjacent the wall or baseboard. With the installation of this type of carpet, a foam pad 25 is normally laid upon the floor and the carpet 24 laid over pad 25. Thus the anchoring strip must be thick enough to align the top surface of block 12 with the surface of the foam pad 25. It is to be noted that the anchoring strip is spaced slightly from the surface of the wall or baseboard as the case may be to permit tucking the edge of the carpet out of sight after the carpet has been properly stretched and anchored upon the hooking nails 16. The anchoring strip must be attached to the fioor 23. When the strip is to be anchored to a concrete floor, a plurality of specially hardened nails 26 are provided and nails 26 are driven through the plywood 11 into the concrete as illustrated in FIG. 3. Due to the hardness of the concrete, the nails 2'6 are actually wedged into the voids of the concrete and provide a sufficient grip for a shear stress, that is, a direct pull of the carpet along the surface of the concrete would produce a shear stress on nails 26. But, due to the stretch of the carpet, there is a tendency for the anchoring strip to be lifted, particularly on the edge adjacent the wall or baseboard. Therefore nails 26 are not appropriate for anchoring the strip adjacent the wall or baseboard as they tend to pull out. In this invention in FIG. 2, a ledge or hollowed area 28 must be routed out under the baseboard 18 so that the leading edge 15 of the anchoring strip 10 may be wedged into the ledge 28. In some installations, the baseboard is not abutting the floor, in other installations, due to the uneven floor line, there are hollow areas. In any event, by inserting a mobile hand operated or motor operated router, the hollowed out ledge 28 may be formed. The leading edge of the strip 11 may then be inserted in this ledge and the nails 26 driven through the opposite area of the strip to affix the anchoring strip 10 so that the leading edge of the strip cannot be lifted and all stresses are resolved into a horizontal pull. Thus the stretched carpet is securely fastened and the anchoring strips are not ripped loose.

Referring to FIG. 3 there is illustrated a further ernbodiment of this invention in which the anchoring strip 10 is applied to a concrete oor and may abut a concrete partition or wall 17A. -In this embodiment, the wall 17A adjacent the floor is routed out with a power tool, or is precast to form the hollow ledge 28 and the leading edge 15 of the strip is similarly wedged in this area. The opposite portion of the strip is also retained by nails 26, however in this embodiment, the nails are the specially hardened nails for penetrating concrete. The anchoring strip will thus be held similar to the previous embodiment.

Referring to FIGS. 4 and 5 there is illustrated a cross sectional view of a stairway 30 with anchoring blocks 10 afxed to the risers 31 and the treads 32 to retain the wall-to-wall carpet 24 properly stretched and retained in the form of the stairway. In FIG. 5 the anchoring strips 10 are shown in their mounted relationship. For each step there is one mounting anchoring strip 10 used for the riser and another for the tread. They are necessarily in abutting relationship so that their adjacent edges 33 and 34 are interlocked as illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6 and their trailing edges 35 and 36 are securely nailed by nails 26 to thus provide an anchor for the wall-to-wall carpet 24. The carpet 24 is tucked into the area 38 and both sets of lhooking nails 16 will grip the carpet and hold it in its stretched relationship. The carpet is laid over a pad as already described. With the carpet mounted on the stairway 30, the shifting of the carpet is literally impossible as the horizontal pull of the carpet becomes a shear stress on nails 26 and the leading edge 34 cannot lift because it is interlocked with edge 33 of the horizontal strip 10. Strip 10 mounted horizontally thus receives only an upward force which is resolved as a shear stress on the nails 26. Similarly any pull upward on carpet 24 will provide the same shear stress on nails 26 and the interlocked strip 10 prevent any lifting or movement of the leading edges 33 and 34 of the strips.

Referring to FIG. 7 there is illustrated a further embodiment of FIGS. 4, 5 and 6 in which the interlocking form of the edges 33 and 34 is changed from the squared off joints 33A and 34A to an elipse 38 so that the two elipses although at right angles to each other are able to nest in an interlocked form as shown.

Although an anchoring strip for carpet has been illustrated as applied to a wood oor or concrete oor, it is to be understood that the anchoring strip of this invention may be applied to any hard surface floor where wall-to-wall carpet is to be stretched and laid. In the event the carpet is to be laid outside of a building, a curb or boundary element similar to a baseboard must be used. However the boundary must be heavy enough or anchored to the concrete upon which the carpet is laid to provide a proper anchor for the anchoring strip. Although the anchoring strip has been illustrated with a retaining means that is wedged under the baseboard or boundary for the carpet, the particular design of the wedging means may be varied without departing from the spirit of this invention.

What is claimed. is:

1. A method for securing the edges of wall-to-wall carpet with a pad comprising, first preparing the wall adjacent the oor with an undercut groove by routing it out along the entire length of the carpet edge, secondly inserting the lower .edge of a carpet anchoring strip into said undercut groove to retain one side of said anchoring strip, thirdly aixing the opposite edge of said anchoring strip to the iloor and fourthly placing the carp-et pad and carpet upon the Hoor and stretching and tucking in the edges of said carpet so that said anchoring strip grips the stretched carpet and retains the edges in abutment with the wall.

2. In a method according to claim 1 in which the floor and wall are of wood.

3. In a method according to claim 1 in which the floor and wall are of concrete.

4. In a method according to claim 1 in which the oor is of concrete and the wall is of wood.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,774,190 8/ 1930 Stannard.

2,631,327 3/1953 Roberts 16-16 2,664,589 1/1954 Szpilberg 16-16 2,670,494 3/ 1954 Owens 16-16 3,000,009 9/1961 Selstad 29-432 3,105,239 10/1963 Bergstrom 29-432 3,353,204 11/1967 Hill 16-16 CHARLIE T. MOON, Primary Examiner U.S. Cl. X.R. 16--16 

